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ideal wind speed?
Sailing a 68 footer, especially a motor sailor, has it own set of skills that go far beyond those that you will learn sailing small boats. If you are really just learning to sail and operate boats, then I would be very concerned about operating a boat of that size. The momentum and wind load forces are so large in the that boats of that size can easily hurt people. I would strongly suggest that you work your way up to the 68 footer. Perhaps with a boat in the 30-35 foot range. This is a safer platform to learn boat and sail handling skills. I would suggest that you also get some time crewing with more experienced sailors to see how they do things.
Big boats require a different kind of judgement that smaller boats. In some ways big boats are less forgiving. It takes judgement to know when to shorten sails because manhandling sails in a blow is not an easy option. Big boats do not turn or stop as quickly so it takes judgement to figure out is a place is safe to enter and to develop an exit strategy if things go wrong. If things go wrong it is very easy to do a lot of damage or worse yet hurt someone.
Then again most motor sailors are a strange breed that are not great sailboats and not great power boats either. As sailboats they have a lot of drag and a lot of windage. As powerboats they are underpowered, rolly, and slow. As a sailboat a motorsailor that size would be useless in the lighter wind range that most people prefer to sail in but as the wind builds so do the need for sail handling and setting skills.
Then there are hardware issues. Deck and sail handling hardware has greatly improved since 1977. We have better winches, vangs, travellers, and even running rigging. We have lower stretch, lower weight sail cloths. All of these things make it easier and safer to handle a bigger boat. Unless Stella Maris has been upgraded, you are dealing with a more difficult situation than simply handling a big boat.
I don''t know how much boating(other than sailing) experience that you have, I don''t know who you have for crew and I don''t know what your plans are but handling a 23 year old 68 footer in "blue water" is not something to be taken lightly.
Respectfully
Jeff
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